Climate resilience

Sydney Airport operates Australia’s major gateway airport. It is an essential piece of regional and national infrastructure which supports the mobility and economic growth of the communities we serve.

Our operations deliver high levels of availability, reliability and resilience and we recognise climate change has the potential to affect our business through physical and transitional risks.

Climate change has the potential to affect our business through physical, transitional and regulatory changes. We are committed to reducing our emissions footprint in line with our commitments, improving our operational resilience and adapting to the predicted effects of a changing climate now and into the future.

In May 2021, Sydney Airport announced our commitment to achieve Net Zero emissions under our operational control by 2030 (Scope 1 and 2 emissions). Read more about this commitment here.

We recognise that Scope 1 and 2 emissions account for 13 per cent of our total emissions footprint (scope 1, 2 and 3) and we are engaging with our partners on ways to decrease our Scope 3 emissions, which make up 87 per cent of our emissions footprint.

Sydney Airport has been a supporter of the TCFD since 2018 and has disclosed its climate change risk management in line with the TCFD reporting framework since that time. See our Response to the TCFD Recommendations for our detailed disclosure against its framework.

The Sydney Airport Board oversees climate risk management and its potential to influence and inform corporate strategy and decision making. Our Board is supported by the Safety, Security and Sustainability (SSS) Committee which has full oversight of all environmental and sustainability matters, including climate change.

In line with our Environment Policy and Sustainability Policy, we commit to addressing climate change by quantifying, managing and reducing our carbon emissions, together with adapting to the effects of climate change.

Our Airport Environment Strategy 2019-2024 includes an environmental action plan to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. The objectives of this plan are to:

  • Understand and minimise direct and indirect impacts associated with climate change
  • Cost effectively reduce energy and greenhouse gas emissions intensities
  • Meet all relevant regulatory requirements

Sydney Airport’s Climate Action Plans; Adaptation and Decarbonisation, outline our priority physical and transition risks and opportunities associated with climate change and outlines the current and future potential actions we are taking to mitigate these risks (and capitalise on opportunities). The climate risk assessment process is based on identified potential future climate scenarios, as outlined in SYD's Sustainability Report and our Response to the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Our Sustainable Design Guidelines integrate minimum sustainability requirements into the project lifecycle, including climate resilience considerations, to enhance sustainability outcomes. These guidelines are currently in a pilot roll out phase and will be finalised in the next year.

Sydney Airport also has a range of policies and controls that reduce impacts caused by climate and weather issues. The Airport Emergency Plan provides a robust, risk based framework to manage incidents across the airport and minimise business and operational disruptions.

See the climate change mitigation and adaptation section to read more about what Sydney Airport is doing to address climate change.